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September 30, 2013

Rumi (September 30, 1207 – 17 December 1273)

THOSE YOU ARE WITH

What is a real connection between people?
When the same knowledge
opens a door between them. When the same inner sight exists
in you as in another, you are drawn to be companions.
When a man feels in himself the innermost nature of woman,
he is drawn sexually. When a woman feels the masculine self of a man within her,
she wants him physically in her.

When you feel the qualities of Gabriel in you,
you fly up quickly
like a fledgling not thinking of the ground.
When you feel asinine qualities in you, no matter how you try
to do otherwise, you will head toward the stable.
The mouse is not despicable for its form, which is a helpless
victim
to birds of prey, the mouse who loves dark places and cheese
and pistachio nuts and syrup. When the white falcon, though,
has the inner nature of a mouse, it is a disgrace to all animals.
Angelic figures and criminals
shackled head-down in a pit are similar looking,
same arms, same head. Moses is a bright spirit.
Pharaoh disgusting with his sorcery.

Always search for your innermost nature in those you are with.
As rose oil imbibes from roses.
Even on the grave of a holy man, a holy man lays his face
and hands and takes in light.

Mathnawi VI, 2992-3008Translated by Coleman Barks

ONLY THE HEART

If a wealthy person brings a hundred sacks of gold,
God will only say,
"Bring the heart, you who are bent double.
If the Heart is pleased with you, I am pleased;
and if the Heart is opposed to you, I am opposed.
I don't pay attention to "you"; I look to the heart:
bring it, poor soul, as a gift to My door!
Its relation to you is also mine:
Paradise is at the feet of mothers."
The heart is the mother and father and origin of all creatures:
the one who knows the heart from the skin is blessed.
You will say, "Look I have brought a heart to You."
God will respond, "The world is full of these hearts.
Bring the heart that is the axis of the world
and the soul of the soul of the soul of Adam."
The Ruler of all hearts is waiting
for a heart filled with light and goodness.

People are distracted by objects of desire,
and afterward repent of the lust they've indulged,
because they have indulged with a phantom
and are left even farther from Reality than before.
Your desire for the illusory could be a wing,
by means of which a seeker might ascend to Reality.
When you have indulged in lust, your wing drops off;
you become lame, abandoned by a fantasy.
Preserve the wing and don't indulge in such lust,
so that the wing of desire may bear you to Paradise.
People fancy they are enjoying themselves,
but they are really tearing out their wings
for the sake of an illusion.

Shams of Tabriz was a wandering Sufi mystic and Rūmī's spiritual
instructor. Their encounter and friendship provided a transforming
experience that forever changed Rūmī's life. His disappearance led to
Rūmī's Dīvān, written in his memory: The face of Shams al-Dīn, Tabriz's glory, is the sun, in whose track the cloud-like hearts are moving.

Shams means "Sun," and he was certainly Rūmī's sun. Here, Shams, in a
brown cloak, sees the reflection of the sun in the center of a small
pool, while Rūmī points to the upside-down face of the sun itself. For
Shams, the pool is a symbol of paradise. The entwining cypress and
blossoming fruit tree is a metaphor for the love between Rūmī and Shams. (from The Morgan Library)